Memiors of Loss
by Chime
Summary: Two lovers lament the loss of each other.
1. Wishing to Lose

**Wishing to Lose  
Jareth**

  
  
  
**Author's Note/Disclaimer** Same as last time, kids. Please, please, please review.  
  
  
I have always been the final word in my kingdom.   
  
Always, without fail, I have been a king of kings. My subjects are happy - disgustingly so. They live the existence that befits them, an existence that they love in a way they could no other. I am a hard man, a cruel man, but I am a just man and a good king, even if I seem needlessly callous. And so, in it's own way, my kingdom flourishes. One would think a king would be pleased with this.   
  
In truth, the only consolation from my misery is sleep. Dreams, actually - for only when I dream, may I truly live. In the night, surrounded by the high castle walls, her face dances in front of my eyes. Her body is by my side. Her voice argues with me fiercely. How many times have I dreamt we danced? How many times did she move to me, never backing away, moving to meet my lips?   
  
_Countless._   
  
When she ate the peach and dreamt, I truly rejoiced. For it was not my dream, not my wish - _but her own._   
  
I sat with the child, her brother, in my arms through that day. A delight, a dream in himself, the child. Thoughts of him are inevitable, and thoughts of her are simply my being. It was not my intent to turn him into a goblin, in all honesty. An heir will some day be a necessity - I will live for a hundred times the duration of an Abovegrounder, but I will some day die - and both the baby and Sarah were pulled from loveless parents. A fool to think I would make their lives better. A fool to forget my dear Sarah was so strong-willed, so persistent. Deep in her mind she knew all along that I wished to have what _could not_ be possessed.   
  
I desired the child for my country. I desired Sarah for my own sad being.   
  
I held her in my arms as we danced in her fantasy, the ball I created for her. She was warm, so lovely. Her beautiful, cruel eyes bore into my own, and for that moment, Sarah was mine, just as I have always been hers. Oh, that she hadn't shattered it. It would have been a loss, in her mind.   
  
And still, mine is the final choice. I forced her to play by my rules. I twisted time, I moved space. I did not allow her to slide through my labyrinth as if it were a game. And _still_, I wished for her to win. I lied to her in the relativity room. I promised her I would be her slave if she would fear me, love me, do as I said - when in truth, I have always been _her_ slave. Oh, had she defied in another way then she did! If only she had denied me, demanded that I do all of those things for her! Though I was as defiant as she, I would have crumbled.   
  
Her will is strong as mine.   
  
And on that day, it was stronger.   
  
Seventeen years ago, on the day of her birth, I was gazing Aboveground. I watched as her lovely being slipped into the mortal world. As her mother died in a timeless act of love, childbirth. As she willfully defied her father when he brought Karen home for the first time. As Toby was born, as she wept when her father seemed to forget her. As she holed herself in her room every night, reading, as she grew old alone, comforted only by her books and writing. I watched her mortal life end, quietly in the night.   
  
Oh, it must seem so strange that I saw all of this in a moment, a single fragment of time. Never in my long life had something so sensational happened as I gazed, and I knew immediately that destiny was demanding I take action. Cruel destiny shattered my cold heart, and in that moment I fell in love with a woman who wouldn't truly exist for nearly another two decades.   
  
Sweet, cruel, defiant Sarah. The most hurtful part of this affair is that it is her defiance, her cruelty, her intelligence, her utter humanity that makes me love her. This, however, is parallel only to the knowledge that she loves me in return.   
  
I thought I could change her life. I thought I could give her peace, and I knew I could give her love. I was a fool to bring her to me at such a young age. I could have gently moved her to me, years in the future, instead of attempting to seize her in her youth. I could have intervened in her life years later, when she had been sculpted by the world Aboveground. So selfish! I thought I could force her here, make her prematurely grow into the woman I loved.   
  
But I am a fool.   
  
And so, my loneliness consumes me. She was perfectly right, in the end - _I have no power over her_.   
  
Because, you see, I lost before the game started. 


	2. Truth Hurts, Little Girl

**Truth Hurts, Little Girl  
Sarah**  
  
  


**Author's notes/Disclaimer**: First off notes. I know, this isn't Harry Potter fanfiction! Oh, heart! *watches as the few readers she has die of shock* Blast. In any event, I've decided to finally do some Labyrinth fanfiction. Good thing too, because I watch that movie far too much for my own health. A word comes to mind: obsession.  
  
Well duh. Certainly a concept I'm familiar with.  
  
In any event, here it is. Labyrinth is © someone who is not me. It's a Jim Hensen film (man was a genius), and I mean no disrespect to anyone involved in the movie, because oy, do I love it.  
  
  
As always, please please please review!  
  
  
  
Why is it that we so often realize our mistakes only after we make them?   
  
In those final moments, my triumph clouded my emotions. _I was going to win._ I was going to take Toby home, and Jareth could swallow that smirk of his and wallow in his defeat. I was the victor, I had won fairly in a world that wasn't ever fair, and he hadn't been able to stop me.   
  
Now, I wonder how I could have ignored what was right in front of me.   
  
His eyes, for instance, in the ballroom. I was so dead-set on winning the game - that's how I think of it now, the game - that I forced myself to ignore the way he looked at me. That gaze was set on me so many times, and each time I pushed him away.   
  
My father's room.   
  
The entrance to the Labyrinth.   
  
The fantasy.   
  
Even the Relativity room. His voice entranced me from the start, and even while I searched for Toby, the adrenaline pulsing through my veins, his voice was in my head, echoing and telling me he loved me in every note.   
  
_I... can live... within you..._   
  
It was so hard to watch him when he said it, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. Even in that moment, he knew it was over. He knew I was going to defy him.   
  
He knew I loved him, and I was going to leave anyway.   
  
And still, he acquiesced. The memory haunts me when I go to bed it night – it greets me in the morning, tortures my dreams. Sometimes I'm back, and I tell him he has no power over me, and instead of throwing that globe into the air and sending me home, he shakes his head and smiles that aggravating smile, that terrible smile that haunts me. Oh, God. If he had, would I have been a miserable as I now am? Would I still dream of him every night if he hadn't let me go back home?   
  
And I do believe he let me. Just think on the power he possessed! He shifted time, he moved me to another world, _and still I won_. It doesn't quite seem right, does it? Having all that power, yet falling to my declaration of his powerlessness. Was it true, though? Did he really have no power over me?   
  
Perhaps he knew. Perhaps, in a way, his power lies in the fact that he is never far from my mind, despite my wishes. You cant really say I think about him – because it's really more of a possession. I see him in every face, hear him in every song. Oh! His beautiful voice. The magic entrapped in his voice alone should have won over any woman.   
  
I think, perhaps, he was in love with me, and I know, four years later and alone, that I am in love with him.   
  
So maybe I'll die alone.   
  
And maybe I'll sleep with a man who doesn't exist to me for the rest of my life.   
  
And maybe my heart is wedded to ice.   
  
But for some reason…  
  
I don't think so.   
  



End file.
